December 9th 2006

Another double today, on the run and in the pool. Both harder than yesterday.

Swim: 200 Warm-up; 4 x 50 Drill (heads-up swimming and one-arms); 8 x 300 (break 300s into 100s by effort: hard 100-easy 100-hard 100 on the odd 300s; easy 100-hard 100-easy 100 on the even 100s); 100 Cool-down.

Try doing two of the hard-easy-hard 300s with fins on. Fins, more than anything else, let you feel the water pressing on the forward surfaces of your body. The best swimmers out there spend the majority of their energy not on propulsion, but on minimizing drag. Fins also show you what it feels like to swim fast; this is a good thing to know. As you swim with your fins on, try to keep your body firmly locked in the hole made in the water by your head. Keep rolling back and forth, so you’re not presenting a flat, barge-like body to he water.

Run: 90 minutes, with 20 minutes run at steady-state interval. For me, I keep my heart rate between 160-171 BPM and try to average just over 6:00/Mile. Steady state mileage is valuable to triathletes, especially those that compete at longer distances. You’re never over your lactate threshold, as you would be at tempo speed. During steady state workouts, it’s important to run smoothly, running hard is for later in the year. You’ll be running quickly, but not really fast.

Last VERGE race tomorrow, down in Warwick, RI.

December 8th 2006

Two short workouts today: an icy run on the XC trails around school, and then about 45 minutes in the pool.

Recovery Run (HR 90-150): 40 minutes

Swim: 200 warm-up; 2000 straight at yellow pace (aerobic); 10 x 50 drill; 100 cooldown.

I did some head-up and one-arm swimming for the drills. Most triathletes, when they do one-arm drills, don’t do them right. They keep their body flat in the water and and cycle that arm through the water. You don’t swim two-armed like that (or at least I hope you don’t!), so don’t drill like that. Swim with one arm extended out in front (the right arm, for this example). As your left hand (the pulling hand) enters the water, roll towards your right arm so that you can look under your armpit, to the right. Rolling this far will make you concentrate on body roll (another ignored principle by many triathletes), and gets you to reach out beyond that extended right arm. As you catch and then pull yourself through the water, do it slowly, so you can feel the water pressure on your hand and arm. You aren’t supposed to be doing these fast, remember! You’re learning how to hold more water, that is, to be able to exert force on a greater surface area of water. You know what that adds up to. If you don’t, surf over to a physics blog.